President Donald Trump’s niece is free to release and discuss her damning book on the president’s family, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled on Monday.
Mary Trump, daughter of the president’s deceased older brother, Fred Trump Jr., had been blocked from publicizing her highly anticipated tell-all by a temporary restraining order as her uncle Robert Trump sued her to impede its release. But New York Supreme Court Judge Hal Greenwald shut down the restraints on Monday evening, allowing Mary Trump to promote her book on the eve of its scheduled publication.
The book, titled “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” has already garnered considerable media attention as a peephole into the upbringing and intimate life of Donald Trump. Mary Trump is the first member of the president’s family to so publicly open up about the president outside of his dealings within the White House.
“Now that the unconstitutional gag order has finally been lifted, we are sure the White House and America are looking forward to finally hearing what Mary has to say,” Chris Bastardi, a spokesperson for Mary Trump, said in a statement on Monday.
Robert Trump claimed the book was a violation of family agreements from 2001 over the will of the family patriarch, Fred Trump Sr., and a New York court barred Mary Trump and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, from publicizing the book. But the state courts lifted the ruling on the publishing house, allowing it to continue with the book’s publication. Still, Mary Trump remained unable to speak about her book, barring her from any publicity appearances.
But in his terse decision on Monday, Greenwald said Robert Trump failed to prove any kind of violation or irreparable harm that would warrant blocking the book’s release. Greenwald also pointed out that the book’s discussion of the Trump family, which could be in the public interest ahead of a presidential election, was not covered in the 2001 Trump family confidentiality agreement.
“The court got it right in rejecting the Trump family’s effort to squelch Mary Trump’s core political speech on important issues of public concern,” Mary Trump’s lawyer, Theodore Boutrous Jr., said in a statement. “The First Amendment forbids prior restraints because they are intolerable infringements on the right to participate in democracy. Tomorrow, the American public will be able to read Mary’s important words for themselves.”
Greenwald also publicly clarified that Simon & Schuster would be free to publish the book, denying Robert Trump's claim that the publishing house was an agent for Mary Trump. Such a relationship would have equally silenced the publisher.
Greenwald also notes that thousands of copies of the book had already been printed and sent out for delivery.
In a statement, Simon & Schuster celebrated the court’s Monday decision as a support for the “unfettered right to publish” as “a sacred American freedom.”
“TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH is a work of great significance, with very real implications for our national discourse, and we look forward to bringing it to a public that is clearly eager to read it,” the statement said.
The public definitely appears eager to read it. The book is trending number one in Amazon’s bestseller list, and has made the list for the past three weeks.
Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, says in her book that the president was a product of emotional neglect from an absent mother and sociopathic father. She describes a person who likely suffers from multiple psychological disorders and repeatedly lied and cheated through life.
At one point, Mary Trump claims her uncle Donald paid someone to take his SAT and that he went to the movies when his brother Fred was dying in the hospital.
The White House has denied the claims in the book as opportunistic fantasy.
“It's a book of falsehoods, and that‘s about it,“ White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said last week. “It‘s ridiculous, absurd allegations that has absolutely no bearing in truth.“
Robert Trump‘s lawyer, Charles Harder, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
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